Press

Kathy speaks regularly to City Council. Voters decided to have Kathy’s voice on City Council.

As an elected official, volunteer and neighbor, Kathy Griswold has been active in speaking out on important issues for many years. She has spoken out at public meetings on topics such as transit, the AAPD Police Oversight Board, pedestrian safety, non-motorized transportation, crime and governmental transparency.

Kathy Griswold, who won the Ward 2 Democratic primary for City Council and is now uncontested in the general election, is concerned with council decisions becoming more based in emotion than facts. “One of my concerns is are we going to have a formal decision-making process to decide what to do with the building?” Griswold said. “Frequently we get input from the community but it’s more just (a lot of emotion) gets interjected and we don’t have the facts and a framework to make the decision.”

Kathy Griswold said: “I want to stress that we are a very intelligent community and we have to have good governance,” she said. “That means being open, being transparent and looking very carefully at how we budget our tax dollars.”

“Poor lighting in Ann Arbor is not solely a student concern. Monday, the Ann Arbor City Council heard several residents express their concerns regarding pedestrian safety and street lights. Resident Kathy Griswold specifically argued for the safety of children at crosswalks.”

Kathy Advocates for Pedestrian Safety…

Ann Arbor residents, and the citizen’s advocacy group A2 Safe Transport, have frequently expressed frustration over the city’s slow progress on pedestrian safety. A school safety report released by the city administrator earlier this month—weeks after planned release time—did not contain crosswalk evaluations or cost estimates as it was supposed to. Ann Arbor resident Kathy Griswold, a member of A2 Safe Transport, said the resolution did not provide sufficient protection for pedestrians.

“This would be a perfect example of what not to do if you wanted to create a safe crosswalk,” she said. “Engineering 101, you would fail if you did something like this. This has three lanes of traffic, no refuge island and, until recently, no street lighting. We deserve better,” said Griswold.

Warpehoski says council lifted the moratorium [on placing new streetlights] “because of Kathy Griswold bringing it up to us repeatedly and getting a bigger budget” as the economy recovered.

Griswold, a former school board member, is all but unrelenting in her criticism of council. “Jane Lumm’s resolution addresses one crosswalk, and I commend her for it,” she says. “But we’re never going to have safe crosswalks if we just react. We have to identify all our crosswalks, and we have to do it immediately, because right now many of our crosswalks don’t meet minimum standards….”

Kathy Advocates for Citizen Input…

“The Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission recommended a Police Oversight Board. This seems to have stalled. Why? I see the Police Oversight Board as an opportunity to build an ongoing relationship between police and citizens.”—Kathy Griswold

Kathy Advocates for Governmental Transparency…

Kathy Griswold told the board that the Ann Arbor community is fortunate to have such an excellent library and truly excellent staff. She wanted to talk about one lost opportunity and two minor areas of weakness. The lost opportunity is that the library isn’t addressing part of its mission statement for underserved populations and low-income students….Regarding weaknesses, Griswold cited communications as something that needed work. She noted that the Detroit Free Press had recently sued the University of Michigan board of regents over alleged violations of the state’s Open Meetings Act. “I believe that their regents operate similar to the way that trustees operate, and that is just within the limits of the Open Meetings Act.”

Kathy Advocates for Alternative Transit…

Kathy Griswold also addressed the AATA board during public commentary time at the start of the meeting. She said there had been talk of a millage in the near future – an additional 0.7 mills for Ann Arbor residents. She stated that she supports transportation. She knew many students and hourly workers who rely on bus transportation. She told the board that they need to be very aware that they have made some missteps, and there is some dissatisfaction with the existing service because it doesn’t meet all of the needs of the Ann Arbor taxpayers. By proposing a millage, she said, expectations would be raised.

“A tremendous amount of effort and cooperation is required in order to get one of these grants,” said Kathy Griswold, a former Ann Arbor school board member and former member of the Transportation Safety Committee.

Griswold said she’d just attended a meeting about the non-motorized transportation plan review. She had reviewed the proposed update of the plan for 2012 and reported that “I have to say, I’m incensed. I’m so angry.” She was angry because the funding mechanism identified is Safe Routes to School, she said. Ann Arbor is a wealthy community – with money to plan for buses and trains. So she said “it’s time we thought about our children.” Some children are walking in the dark to school without sidewalks, she said.

She questioned the appropriateness of using “Pedestrians Rule” as a motto in educational material, because they don’t rule, she said. She felt the use of such material was a result of excluding traffic and transportation engineers from participation in the development of such material. She contended that signage at crosswalks is inconsistent with the crosswalk ordinance.